iPhone: Is it water-resistant, waterproof or neither?

iPhone: water-resistant, waterproof or neither?

iPhone lovers and admires tremble with excitement to have their gadget officially waterproof. But they definitely wouldn’t switch to famous Sony Z and M series for just that feature.

Is that in works? How are iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus doing in that regard so far? We did our research of news around and here’s what we found out.

iPhone 6s & iPhone 6s Plus

During the presentations of these newcomers their water resistance capability was not pointed out directly. No wonder that all the gadget lovers started their own tests after 6s and 6s Plus were available. There are tons of home-made experiments on YouTube. After reviewing those and thoroughly going through the well-known iFixit report, here are the key learnings.

A strip of glue

Once the device was taken apart and inspected in a proper manner, an interesting fact has been discovered. There’s a strip of glue that acts as a gasket surrounding the entire inside edge of the iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus. That can’t but lead to a slight width increase (+0.3mm compared to the previous year models). There’s a minor probability that it’s meant to simply hold the inner parts together, it’s rather highly probable that the idea behind is to make the devices more water resistant.

Silicone barrier

Another remarkable learning is that all the cable connectors on the logic board are surrounded and reinforced with a silicone barrier. As experts point out, those inner parts are usually the most vulnerable to liquid damages. So it does appear that Apple has put efforts into protecting them.

Does that make iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus waterproof? We would say rather not. But are the models liquid resistant? Definitely. All the tests show that both newcomers remain undamaged after staying a couple of hours in the water. We would not recommend to try it for yourself though – after all Apple never claimed 6s and 6s Plus to be waterproof.

Future iPhone 7 waterproof feature?

After the new Apple patent has been exposed in the internet it became obvious – the company is planning on making some/all of its future devices waterproof.

The technology describes the new method of liquid protection as the one that not only “packages” the components of the device into a waterproof case (as is most commonly done), but also covers the inner parts with a special hydrophobic coating. That coating of 1 to 10 microns makes it a thick layer which allows chips to stay safe after a contact with liquid.

Is that technology going to be implemented in the future iPhone? We shall see.